Declaration of UWK President

As you are aware, on July 19, 2016, I appeared in the Swiss Court in Lausanne regarding the issue of discrimination and advancement of Karate to the Olympic Games in Tokyo in 2020. Mr. Liviu Crisan, 1st Vice President also appeared in the proceedings as a witness.

The purpose of the court action was to acquire emergency procedures to require the IOC to intervene in the dispute between WKF and United World Karate to ensure that Karate was properly represented in the 2020 Olympic Games should the IOC support the advancement of Karate to the Olympic Games.

Our position in this court action was to state that WKF does not represent karate – it only represents the Karate Sport of WKF, which is a very small part of Karate world-wide. UWK believes that Karate should be unified and that more events that are representative of the diversity within Karate should be included in any Olympic Games proposal. Obviously, WKF disagrees as they believe they would lose control and financial benefit if others are included.

This is an important distinction between UWK and WKF. UWK wants unification in support of all karate practitioners. WKF does not. It only wants to support its own Karate sport in the Olympics – abandoning millions of passionate Karate athletes world-wide. UWK will continue to fight this injustice and we ask for your support.

Sincerely,
Richard Jorgensen, President United World Karate

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United World Karate was created to provide a unified format for karate competition that would respect the diversity of the martial art. As such, United World Karate provides a platform of competition for Traditional Karate (non-contact, Ippon Sho-bu/non-weight categories); General Karate (non-contact, multi-point with weight categories); and, Contact Karate. There is no other World Governing Body of Karate that offers this diversity.